Jeremy McCarthy, group director of spa for Mandarin Oriental, outlined the ways in which wellness behaviour is changing in his opening speech at
Piscina & Wellness Barcelona, being held from 13-16 October in Barcelona, Spain.
Movement is becoming the new fitness, said McCarthy, with a shift towards more diversity of movement to challenge the body in as many ways as possible. He pointed to the example of Cross Fit, the popular exercise programme that mixes different movements to ensure all areas of the body are used.
"We're living in a video age," said McCarthy. "We're not looking at static images anymore - we're looking at video – and so there's a much greater interest in the broader sense of movement and what you can do with your body."
Hotels normally want to get as much equipment as possible in their gyms, said McCarthy, but those machines lock people into a limited pattern of movement. He envisions future hotel fitness centres will include more space to allow people to move.
Even though movement may be the new fitness, there is also an increasing need to make time for stillness, said McCarthy.
"We're sedentary, but we're not restful," he explained. "We all have this drive to want to produce, every waking moment of every day – and we live in the first time in human history where you can be productive every minute of every day. We've always had forced downtime in our schedules until today."
The challenge for wellness providers, said McCarthy, is to figure out how we encourage people in the art of sitting and doing nothing.
A spa is one of the only places where you are still, and that's an advantage our industry should promote, suggested McCarty. Mandarin Oriental is introducing a Silent Night on 16 December across all its spas, which will include silent spas with no talking or music.
McCarthy also discussed how the link between happiness and health is getting stronger, with more and more evidence pointing to the idea that being happy also makes you healthy.
"Spas have the reputation for making people happy," said McCarthy. "...When we make people feel good, it's like we're re-charging a force field around them that buffers them from the stressors of the outside world.
McCarthy also detailed the ways in which wellness is everywhere in today's world.
"Consumers today are no longer content to spend most of their days in an unhealthy environment and carve out a pocket of wellness where they can," he said. "Consumers want wellness everywhere – at home, at work, when they travel."
McCarthy suggested that the growing popularity of wearable tech has shifted the responsibility for wellness away from doctors and put it in the hands – or on the wrists – of consumers themselves.
"There is a greater awareness and expectation that they need to maintain that wherever they are," said McCarthy.
McCarthy said that true wellness travellers make up just 6 per cent of all travellers, but are growing at a rate of 9.1 per cent a year – 50 per cent faster than the rest of travellers – and they spend 130 per cent more than the average travellers.
"Wellness and affluence go hand-in-hand," he explained.
That said, McCarthy believes wellness needs to be looked at holistically.
"You can't just put wellness into a compartment – you have to look at it across the entire experience, and also across different industries," he said.
McCarthy closed by saying the future looks bright for the wellness industry, especially in terms of how the idea of wellness has changed from one that just included diet and exercise 50 years ago, to one that now also focuses on nourishment, movement, stillness and happiness.
"For all of us who work in these fields, if you look at how the definition of wellness is evolving...it makes me very optimistic for these industries," he said. "I think we're delivering services that consumers need and want."
